Metropolitan Transportation Authority

New York City Transit: Selected Inventory Practices

At the time of our audit, New York City Transit reported an inventory with a cost of $142 million. We found that New York City Transit had excess numbers of some inventory items and insufficient numbers of other items. For example, the excess items accounted for at least 25 percent of the total cost of the inventory. At the same time, because certain parts were not available in inventory, some buses could not be repaired. We also noted that the workloads at inventory storerooms were imbalanced, as the average daily number of inventory transactions processed by the storerooms ranged from 17 per employee at one storeroom to 112 per employee at another storeroom. We further noted that some the vehicles used to transfer items among the storerooms may not be needed, because they were used infrequently.
93-S-32